Brandy A. Sargent

Experience

Brandy Sargent focuses on providing legal services to agribusiness clients including producers, processors and handlers of agricultural products; agricultural cooperatives; agricultural lenders; and practices in Stoel Rives' Corporate group. She focuses her practice on corporate reorganization, workouts and bankruptcy, as well as agricultural contracting and enforcement. She represents debtors, lenders, vendors, purchasers and official and unofficial committees in a variety of commercial and agricultural bankruptcy, workout and litigation matters. Brandy also assists clients with business counseling, contract development, and enforcement actions related to agricultural transactions, including Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) regulation, Food Security Act (FSA) compliance, agricultural and warehousing lien enforcement and defense, and Uniform Commercial Code matters.

Associate, Quarles & Brady LLP, Chicago, Illinois, 2003-2004; associate, Altheimer & Gray, Chicago, Illinois, 1999-2003; law clerk, Daniel Harris and Howard Prosnitz, Chicago, Illinois, 1997-1998; judicial extern, Honorable George M. Marovich, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 1997.

Representative Work

• Represented national agricultural cooperatives in successfully asserting setoff rights related to complex feeding, co-packaging, and sales contracts in dairy, creamery, and cattle-related bankruptcies
• Represented national agricultural cooperatives, nursery, and commodity suppliers, in perfecting and recovering payment under Oregon's agricultural services and produce liens
• Represented nationally known winery and commodity supplier in recovering payments under California's processor and seed supplier liens
• Represented producer in recovering large receivable through informal Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) complaint
• Represented food processor in recovering PACA claims in ice cream manufacturer bankruptcy
• Represented numerous corn suppliers in successfully defending against preference claims in large bio-diesel manufacturer's bankruptcy
• Represented national agricultural lender in obtaining full recovery of real estate loans to bankrupt dairy

Professional Honors & Activities

• Selected as an Oregon Rising Star, Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights, 2008-2012
• Member, Oregon State Bar, Debtor-Creditor Executive Committee 2006-2008
• Member, Oregon State Bar, Debtor-Creditor Editorial Board, 2006-present
• Member, Oregon State Bar, Agricultural Section Executive Committee, 2012-present
• American Society of Writers on Legal Subjects (Scribes), 1998 Best Brief

Presentations

• Bankruptcy Issues in Business Transactions, Stoel Rives University, Jul. 2008
• Now What? - Evaluating Your Position Upon a Counterparty's Bankruptcy, University of Wisconsin Farmers Cooperatives Conference, November 2009

Publications

• Digital Potatoes, Pears and Pumpkins: The Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act Trust in the Electronic Age, Oregon Debtor-Creditor Newsletter, Winter 2008
• Creditor's Counsel Can't Ignore the Bankruptcy Bill, Oregon Debtor-Creditor Newsletter, Spring 2006

Education

• Chicago-Kent College of Law, J.D., 1999
  Order of the Coif
  Dean's List
• Loyola University, B.A., 1995, summa cum laude
  Dean's List
• Loyola University, Rome, Italy, 1993-1994

Admissions

• Oregon
• Illinois

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